


hiraeth

by gremlinumbrellaa



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Best Friends, DadSchlatt, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff and Angst, No Romance, how the hell are you supposed to tag fics, might add more later on - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 05:33:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29621364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gremlinumbrellaa/pseuds/gremlinumbrellaa
Summary: he tries, he really does.
Relationships: Jschlatt & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Kudos: 15





	hiraeth

**Author's Note:**

> this is a prologue of sorts.

It was raining harder than usual, my windshield wipers squeaking across the glass. The white noise provided some comfort, though not much. I had really been wrapped up in my thoughts that day. Regretting practically everything. I had never wanted to be the villain. I never felt it suited me. But I was in too deep now. I couldn’t go back. Rebranding my entire persona would only cause more distrust between myself and my community. Besides, maybe being hated on purpose really was the best thing that I could do for myself right then. Maybe if I were to try to work with others I would be met with the harsh reality that I wasn’t good enough. Maybe it has nothing to do with a warped sense of love. Maybe I’m just bad.

This was something that I had thought about a lot. What if I really am the bad guy? What if it’s not a persona? This was the only thing stopping me from searching for love in places like children or pets. (I’d had a cat once. She had ran away within the first month of me owning her. I never attempted to find her. I figured she was probably happier without me.). If I actually am the problem then I would be doing them a disservice by being in their lives. Of course this just meant that I distanced myself from others before they could distance themselves from me. God, I really was the reason that I was unhappy. Premature rejection was a knee-jerk reaction for me at this point. The question had to be asked: am causing myself more pain than I’m preventing?

My thoughts begin to trail off into memories of past rejections. Old friends, former love interests, family members, the works. I had to pull myself back before I seriously hurt myself again. Re-living pain did nothing for me, why try?

I worry that I had made the wrong choice, not allowing myself to get close to people with children or animals out of fear of taking their innocent sense of happiness before their lives even began. I felt almost as though my hands were dirty with all of my mistakes and when I touched something innocent it would shrivel in my grasp.

It was one of those nights where the clouds covered the moon and the rain was falling so hard you could barely see anything, even with the headlights on. I was tired. Tired and sad. The default emotions, I’d like to think. The weather only mirrored that. A job like mine left you drained in a way that almost physically hurt, your head pounds, the regret leaves a pit in your stomach that follows you everywhere. At work, everyone around me seems to understand the way I’m always looking for something to waste (except money. God forbid I waste money, fuck). I’m sure I’ve probably cost some innocent person’s life in a deal because I hadn’t listened to the terms and conditions. I just jump into the worst things with a huge grin on my face. Sometimes I can’t tell if the grin is genuine or not.

There’s nothing like looking into the eyes of someone who’s proud of you for getting worthless money. Nothing like watching a ton of rich old people sit at a table and talk about how they can get even more rich. Everything I do eats away at me.

I looked up to realize that I was on my street. I didn’t remember pretty much anything from the drive, but I suppose that’s not a bad thing. I had been consumed by my thoughts, which was difficult, sure, but if anything I had just gotten a jump on my activities for the night.

I pulled into my driveway feeling rather dazed when I noticed a box on my front porch. Weird. I had no recollection of ordering anything online and I didn’t have any close friends or family who would send me something out of the blue.

I concluded that the box was meant to go to a neighbor. I was too drained to talk to anyone so I planned on finding the address and leaving it on their doorstep before getting back to the comfort of my own home as quickly as I could.

As I approached the box that was hardly covered by the awning I realized it was open. What? Did someone steal the contents of a package and then just leave the garbage for me?

Then I saw what appeared to be a baby doll in the box. Shit. Is this the whole baby-on-the-doorstep cliche? I leaned over the box, and looked into it closer. If the box is already open and on my doorstep is it still a crime to take it and look at it? Maybe. I guess we’d just have to find out. I opened it further and gaped at the doll. It was horrifically realistic. It was terrifying. Naturally, I poked it’s cheek. As anyone would, right? It scowled in response before going back to the original, sleeping face. Holy fucking shit.

Either this was a real child, or this doll was haunted or something. It was safer to bet on the Actual Human idea, but I was too fragile to believe it, so I stuck to the little hope I had that it was a doll.

I stood up and picked up the box, struggling with my keys in one hand to unlock the door. It took a good five minutes of struggling, but I got in. With a box full of a sleeping child in my arms. I hauled it into the nearly empty living room and set it on the couch with a huff.

Taking the baby out, I realized it was definitely a real, actual, living, infant. I only came to that conclusion after it opened its eyes at the sudden movement of being picked up and started to cry at me. There was a good few minutes where I held it (them?) at an arm's length, staring at it while it screamed bloody murder.

I sat it in my lap and stared at it for a bit longer. Then I realized that I probably had to do something to make it stop. I rifled through the box while holding the baby against my chest (because it's screaming was quieter when it was muffled against my shirt). All I found was a note, or a letter, in an envelope. I would read that when this thing was not doing…that.

Eventually, when I’d given up trying to get it to stop by not acting like I minded that it was crying-- I mean like, I’d be a bit upset if someone tried to feed me when I was crying-- I pulled it away from my chest and asked it to stop. It didn’t work, obviously, but I figured it was worth a shot anyways.

I accepted that I wasn’t going to stop it from crying anytime soon so I decided to bring it to my room with the box containing the blanket and the envelope so I could read the note and hopefully have the child go to sleep and stop crying, at least for a little bit.

I set the child down on my bed and pulled the sage blue blanket out of the box, only to find that it was damp. I didn’t know how to care for a child but I knew that throwing a wet blanket at it while it was crying probably wasn’t an appropriate thing to do.

I quickly ran and grabbed a soft blanket from my closet to give to the child, at least until I could wash the blanket that it came with.

I covered it with the blanket and it seemed to calm down a bit. It continued to hiccup but the horrid screams stopped.

I sat on the edge of the bed, the child behind me, and I opened the envelope. The note was relatively short considering the author sort of just left a human infant on my doorstep while I was at work. It read:

“ _Dear Jschlatt,  
I’m so sorry to do this to you, especially out of the blue, but I don’t know what other choice I have. The church wouldn’t take him, putting him up for adoption would be the greatest disservice I could ever do him, and I have no friends or family members who could take him in. I’m not in the financial situation to care for him. I just lost my job last week and have no form of income as of right now. I’m most likely going to be homeless in a matter of weeks.  
Normally I would never do something like this but the circumstances leave me with no other choice. This is your son! He’s six months old (12/23/2003 is his birthday!) and his name is Tubbo. I love him more than life itself and would do anything for him, which is why I have to give him up.  
I hope that someday in the future I can have a relationship with him again but right now it’s best if I’m not around, just in case I can’t find a job and have to move back home and as a result will be unable to see him for a while.  
I’m not going to give you my name to ensure that you will keep him safe, I will contact you again as soon as I’m able to take him back. I have also left you with his birth certificate and social security card so that you can enroll him in school if the time comes._

_Take good care of him for me, please, and if he ever asks about me...  
tell him the truth._

_Best of luck to the both of you._ ”

Upon reading the letter, I was in a bit of shock. For a solid few minutes, I sat with the note in my hands and stared at the words. I kept looking over at the kid--Tubbo-- and blinking at him as if he’d disappear any second. I read it over for a second, a third, a fourth time. Slowly, I felt a bubble of anger forming at this mysterious writer. What kind of shit person leaves their infant child for a person who is barely fit to care for themselves? Maybe I was financially there, I was practically rich, but it’s not like I was ever too emotionally ready to raise another human being. I had little to no time on my hands; too many corrupted people surrounding me; a huge, empty, and boring house; basically the perfect mix for an unhappy child stuck with an unhappy father.

Then again, I’ve always been a bit of a pessimist. Who knows. Maybe this kid is the perfect thing for me to learn how to be a good (okay) person. Maybe he’ll teach me more by just existing than I’ve ever learned in my life. Maybe if I keep him away from everyone who's been messed in the head by money and power, then he won’t fall down the same path I have.

Slowly, I’d begun forming a plan, one that doesn’t work unless it does so perfectly, where I’d keep this Tubbo kid away from anything that might make him just as bad as me. I would keep him away from my job and my job away from him. Somehow I’d muster the energy at the end of the day to be cheerful and exciting; the kind of dad that I had never had but always needed. Maybe then he’d have a shot at growing up and not hating himself. I felt like the bar should be higher than that but quite honestly even that seemed like a challenge.

I looked behind me at the baby I was supposed to believe was my own to find him asleep. I couldn’t tell if I was supposed to feel relieved or annoyed. I mean, this dirty child with an unknown origin was asleep in my bed. I felt as though he didn’t earn his comfort, but then I realized I was being irrational. He’s an infant, he can hardly hold his head up by himself, how on Earth was I to expect him to be able to work for what he had?

I think this was the first time that the reality of the situation hit me. I had a child now. For the next eighteen years I was obligated to take care of a child. I briefly considered putting him up for adoption or leaving him in front of a church or something, but then I looked over and saw that the little bastard had grabbed my finger. I couldn’t explain the connection that I felt to him, but when I noticed that he had reached out to me for comfort. Of course I was the only other person there, but I refused to care. He was going to be my son. Whether I liked it or not, I loved this kid.

Or maybe I just wanted something to love. Something to find beauty in. Regardless of the reason, I was going to be the best damn father I could be.

I picked up my phone and texted my secretary something vague about a family emergency causing me to miss work tomorrow. I asked her to inform everyone else who would have been expecting to see me. She was annoyed, I’m sure, but I mean I was new to the job so I hoped that they would cut me some slack. And I mean, as I was quite literally the president, I had the power to exile them or something as I saw fit. She just responded with a simple “Ok.” I now had time to consider the best course of action. I had acquired a child far too young to take care of himself or go to school and a job far too high-stakes to quit. Disconnect from everyone around me and an inability to take care of a child.

I couldn’t sleep that night. I had far too much on my mind. I mean, who wouldn’t? I got home after a long day at work only to find a fucking child on my doorstep, I’d be damned if I let any time go to waste. There was a lot of time spent on thinking about how I would be there for Tubbo’s entire life, watching him do mundane things, teaching him little things that are seemingly unnecessary to learn.

I also pondered on who the mother was, and how the fuck this child even came into existence. He looked like any baby would, all babies look the same anyways, there was no telling if he was actually my biological child until he started growing ram horns. (it's normal for babies to have furry, weird-looking ears, right? It can’t just be a goat thing? I hadn’t been spending a lot of my time looking at babies until now, you know.)

I woke up from my terrible-restless-sort-of-half-sleep a total of three times to comfort Tubbo throughout the night. I didn’t know how to change diapers or feed him yet, so I was just hoping he was trying at being too hot or too cold underneath his little blanket. Every time he woke up I got a little more pissed at him, and after he’d fallen back asleep the last time I called him a “little bitch”, which would probably have to stop relatively soon before I permanently scarred him.

In the morning, at 6:00AM, when I decided I was tired of lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, I got out of bed and changed into a sweatshirt and flannel pajama pants (which were a hell of a lot more comfortable than my work attire).

I swiftly looked over at a sleeping Tubbo, realizing I needed to buy him a ton of baby stuff. I decided that starving him to death was not the way I’d like him to go. I woke him up by picking him up the only way I knew how, by sort of cradling him sideways in both of my arms. He looked up at me with his all-knowing blue-grey eyes, as if he knew how much of an idiot I was. I scowled back at him.

“Right, well, you’re not the one with a brand new, very complicated form of responsibility, are you? You just get to… sit there, and be cute and shit. Fuckin’ unfair.”

There was the momentary worry on how I would safely drive with a baby and no booster seat. After a few minutes of pondering what I could possibly do to make sure he didn’t, like, roll to his death, I made the decision to wrap him in a ton of blankets and hope no one saw him.

I locked the seatbelt so he didn't move around in his blanket-prison, and we were on our way. The drive to the grocery store was full of panicked glances in the baby's direction and hopes that no one saw the absolutely illegal situation we had going on. I passed at least two cop cars on the way, which left me kind of paranoid.

Upon arriving, I opened the door to the passenger’s side and picked him up. I quickly realized there were a lot of people in and around the store, any one of them could potentially be my coworkers, or family, or friends, or any single person who knew of the president’s existence. I pulled the hood to my sweatshirt over my head, covering most of my eyes, hoping that was anywhere near enough for people not to recognize me. (The lack of business-casual attire and the baby in my arms could be enough all on its own, right?)

Tubbo awoke from his short lived nap--thank god he wasn’t one of those babies who cried in the car--and looked at me, then smiled tiredly. He (surely?) had no idea what was going on in the slightest, yet he reacted to my stupidity as if he could read my mind. Kind of terrifying. Maybe his mom was like, fucking magical or something. Maybe I’m just dumb and he’s just as smart as me but can’t express it.

The fluorescent lights on the ceiling above me left a weird glare behind my eyelids every time I blinked. There was the constant hum of people talking around me, but I tuned it out relatively easily. Tubbo winced at the brightness and the noise. I wondered if the lights were somehow bad for his little baby eyes, and that worried me, so I pressed his face against my chest and hoped that he didn’t go blind before he could talk.

It took me about 10 minutes of aimlessly wandering around to find the baby section, which was so packed full of things that swore that they were completely necessary for raising a child (that’s an evil way of marketing… preying on first-time parents who don’t know practically anything on what they need and don’t need… though it’s not like I can make any arguments on what's “evil” or not). I realized quickly that I’d probably need some sort of basket or cart to buy all of this shit, especially because I’m also carrying a baby. Sigh.

I came back with a cart, and with Tubbo in the baby seat part. He was most definitely too young to be able to safely sit there with no support, but he hadn’t shown any signs of needing help sitting up on his own. If he started to fall to one side, that’s when I’d pick him back up.

I bought the best (most expensive) diapers I thought would fit him best, because I didn’t really know how old he was. It might’ve said on that note I was given, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it said, something like “blah blah blah, I’m practically homeless blah blah this is ur kid lol. Feed him and stuff. His name’s Tubbo.” Worst case scenario I have to come back and get different ones. Maybe that would be worse than I’m making it out to be. Maybe I need to believe that the worst case scenario is just getting smaller diapers for this child that I have acquired. Maybe just by taking care of him I was endangering both of our lives. Maybe I needed to focus on the task at hand.

I didn’t know what car seat he needed. I dwelled on this issue for a bit longer than the normal person would have. I couldn’t figure out if he needed the one that new new babies need that faces backwards or the one that faced forwards but had all of the weird straps and buckles.

I couldn’t be sure but I was pretty sure that I got the right one. The picture on the box depicted a small child appearing to be not much older than Tubbo, so I was sure it would be fine.

When I was checking out the cashier looked at Tubbo and gave me a weird look but I thought nothing of it. I mean, if she was seriously concerned then she would’ve said something, right?

I think I understood the glare when I got to my car and unboxed the seat. It was for kids maybe eight years and older. I didn’t realize there was such a difference between six-month-old babies and eight-year-old children. I had to go back and get a different one because the tightly-packed blanket strategy was not something I was willing to try more than once, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to get rid of a forty-dollar car seat. I couldn’t return it as I practically ripped the box open but I figured that when Tubbo got older he would need something similar so I might as well just let it collect dust in my garage for the next eight years.

I think this was the third time that the sheer reality of it hit me. This was a big commitment. I would be dedicating the better part of the next two decades to this child. I’ve had this revelation probably two times more than the normal person, but really, not a lot of people get forced into parenthood with absolutely no warning first, or time to prepare. Most people know what’s going to happen, they’re pregnant, or ready to voluntarily adopt or something of the sort. I was just sort of pushed into it, like any other day, but with a jumpscare of a child thrown into it.

I threw the booster seat in my trunk and put Tubbo back in the cart that I had parked right next to my car. He had started sort of cooing which served as an annoyance as now we were in the presence of people and making unnecessary noise violates the weird unspoken rules of public, but I couldn’t think of a way to make him stop so I just tried to pretend it wasn’t happening. I struggled to admit to myself that I genuinely found it really cute so instead I ignored it (Jesus, I really just didn’t let myself be happy, did I?). Maybe in the safety of my own home I could adore the bastard, but for now I was on a mission to think of as many smart parent things and mentally prepare for as many parent things as I could as quickly as I could while searching for the rear-facing car seats. I figured that if he was too old for that one then I could just turn it around, right?

On the car ride home I kept frantically checking the backseat to make sure Tubbo wasn’t just being thrown around or something like that. Of course he was fine but I just couldn’t shake the fear that I would somehow kill the kid before I got a chance to be his father.

The store was about a twenty minute drive from my house so I decided that I should take the opportunity to call my sister, Lindsey. I figured she would have some idea of what I should do. She was arguably more apathetic than I was but she was a mother and the only person that I could turn to.

The phone rang a total of four times before she picked up and in that time I decided that I would frame it as a hypothetical. Like, hypothetically, if a mystery woman left a baby in a box on my doorstep with a note saying I was its father and needed to raise it for the next eighteen years, what would she do? That’s a very normal thing to say, right?

As soon as she answered the phone I began to sweat. This was going to be...interesting.

“Hello?” she said

“Heyyyyy...do you have a minute?”

“Oh lord, what happened?”

“Wh-nothing! Nothing happened! Why was that your first rea-nevermind. I need to ask you something.”

“And that would be?”

“Uh...so...y’know the baby on the porch trope? Like where someone leaves a baby on your doorstep with a note so you kind of have to...have a child?”

“Mhm,” she said in an incredibly disinterested tone. I found myself almost offended at her apathy. That was a cool ass thing to say, she had no way to know where I was going with that, why would she just not care?

Apparently I got carried away with my internal frustration because she interrupted me to make sure I was still there. “Yes, what do you need?”

“Sorry, sorry. So like, what if, hypothetically, that happened. Like, to me. Like, if I called you and told you that I had a child appear on my doorstep with a note in a box saying it was mine and that I had to take care of it. Like if there was no contact information but I acquired a child, what would you do?” I asked, eagerly.

“Jesus Christ, Schlatt. Are you drunk?”

Maybe this is how I would play it off as an acceptable thing to say. I tried to lean into it by slurring my words a bit. “W-what? Noo no I am not. Not really. Why?”

“Oh my fucking god I don’t have time for thi-”

“PLEASE Lynn please just answer. Just humor me. Please,” I cut her off.

“Ughh where is this even coming from?”

“Just answer, please. Answer and I will leave you alone, I promise.”

“I’d take you to an AA meeting and tell you to put the kid up for adoption.”

“That’s not an option. In this hypothetical I can’t get rid of the child. What would you do?”

“Why couldn’t you put the kid up for adoption?”

I had to think about that one for a second. I didn’t really know why. I loved this kid, I felt a connection to him that I couldn’t explain, but I knew that I couldn’t. I was going to parent the hell out of this kid whether he liked it or not. “I just can’t, okay?? Just answer the question.”

“I’d give you the phone number for a friend of mine; Phil. He runs a little daycare out of his home, only like three other kids go there.”

“OKAY THANK YOU” I practically yelled.

“Schlatt be honest with me, what’s going on?” she asked in a soft tone, catching me off guard.

“It’s just something to, like, think about, okay! But could you send me Phil’s number please? Like, just in case?” I asked, hoping that this would be confusing enough that she would just go along with it.

“Are you at your house right now? I’m on my way over,” she said, likely worried.

I took a second before responding. I needed help, I knew I did, but could I really  
expose myself like that? Could I really tell anyone about Tubbo without risking his safety?

“Schlatt I’m getting in my car now, I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“Heyheyheyheyheyheyheyheyhey-- I’m okay, I’m okay.”

“No, you’re absolutely shit-faced, I’m on my way.”

And with that she hung up. You know, maybe this is a good thing. Maybe she can get me in contact with Phil so that Tubbo would have a place to go while I was at work. Maybe tricking my sister into thinking that I was drunk off my ass so that she’d take the thirty-minute car trip to my house to make sure I wasn’t literally dying or anything was my key to being a good dad. Life tips, kids.

When I got home Tubbo was asleep in his new, chemically-smelling car seat. I didn’t know if I was supposed to get him out of the car before or after I got the items from our outing. I felt like leaving him out in the open would be at least a little bit dangerous so I decided to bring him in. I think that by now I had learned how to properly pick him up and hold him. I picked him up and placed him on my hip, one arm around his little body supporting his ass and the other hanging at my side holding my keys. This felt like a victory. Like I was learning how to properly have a child.

That feeling faded once I got inside and realized I had nowhere to put him where I could guarantee his safety while I ran everything inside. I turned in frantic circles in my living room looking for somewhere to leave him before I saw my open bathroom door. I knew that he was too small to crawl out of the bathtub, so as the clearly fit parent I was, I held him out in front of me and slowly lowered him into my bathtub.

I walked back out to my car feeling nothing short of defeated. Maybe I could make up for it by doing some kick-ass parent shit for the rest of the day. Installing baby gates and those annoying door handle things, making baby formula and feeding him, learning how to change a diaper, changing his clothes, y’know very basic things that most parents in any situation but my own would have learned to do months ago.

As soon as I finished hauling everything inside I saw my sister’s car pull up outside of my house. I quickly ran to grab Tubbo, deciding that I’d rather have her know me as the new father Who Knows How To Properly Hold A Baby as opposed to the one who leaves his kid in the bathtub when he’s not around. Probably a smart move on my end.

I heard her knock on my front door right as I entered the room with Tubbo. I decided to just open it without hesitation to get all of the reaction out of the way so that we could get to the part where she helps me with…this.

I opened the door so that only half of my body was showing, hiding Tubbo with the goal of saving her reactions for the safety of my house.

“You seem fine?” she said, walking through the door, clearly oblivious to what would meet her once she stepped inside.

She looked at me and then down at the baby in my arms in absolute disbelief, letting out a little “Oh,” unable to muster words. No matter how hard I tried I simply could not read her at that moment.

“So uh...how was the drive?” I asked softly, attempting to prompt a reaction or show of emotion of any sort.

“What the fuck have you done?” she choked.

“I DIDN’T DO IT! I HAD NO PART IN THIS! SOMEONE LEFT ME WITH A FUCKING KID, HOW AM I TO BLAME FOR THAT?!” Why was I so defensive? She was there to help me, I should have been nicer. And I mean, regardless of why she was there, it didn’t matter what she thought, I knew what happened, that should be enough.

She walked over to me and grabbed the child from my arms without saying anything. I watched her for a moment to see what she would do with him but she just sort of stood there, holding Tubbo. Her cold eyes met mine as she asked me to tell her what happened.

“Uh. so basically I got home from work and saw a box on my porch and I figured it was a package delivered to the wrong address. But, when I got closer the box was opened. So I thought that maybe someone tried to take the contents of the package or something, but then, I got closer and I saw what I thought was a baby doll so I poked it and it squirmed and so I brought it inside and it squirmed s’more and started to cry, so I concluded that it was a real child and then I put it to bed because I didn’t know what else to do and I found a note in the box so I read it and the jist of it was that the mother was about to be homeless and needed me to take the kid and she left no contact information, so I couldn't try to give him back but I have his birth certificate and social security number hanging in an envelope on my fridge if that’s of any importance and so then I called into work saying that I had a family emergency so that I could think of what I had to do and I went to the store and got a shit-ton of baby stuff and I don’t really know how to use any of it but I’ll figure it out and I can’t give him up because I really think I love him like he’s my child ‘cause he kind of is an-”

“Schlatt, slow down, it’ll be okay. Let’s talk about this a little, okay?” She cut me off. I didn’t realize that I had been rambling until I was interrupted. Y’know I had never really seen this side of her. I had no Idea what she was thinking but her tone was soft and understanding.

I just sort of nodded, out of breath.

“Have you fed him or changed his diaper or anything yet?” she asked.

I sort of hesitated before admitting that I didn’t know how. I mean, I had had this child for maybe twenty hours and I had done very little to take care of him, that’s incredible proof that I am an unfit parent.

I could tell that she was shocked by that but trying to be as calm as possible. She always worked well under pressure, maybe calling her was the right choice.

“Ooh...okay…so, how about you start to make him some formula and I’ll give him a bath, okay?”

I once again only nodded in response, grabbing the jar of powder out of one of the bags I had just set on the counter.

I saw her carry Tubbo into the bathroom, sort of cooing at him. Do you have to do that with babies? It seemed kind of weird.

I heard Lyndsey shout for a towel and a onesie right as I was finished mixing the formula with the boiling water. I looked down at the pile of baby clothes that I had bought today only to find that literally everything was green. I was staring at twelve green onesies. This wouldn’t really pose an issue as he was a literal baby but I took it as a reflection of my greed. Like even when I was trying to do something for someone else I had money on my mind. This caused me distress and another restless night, though in hindsight I find it unlikely that it mattered at all. I probably just thought that green was a pretty agreeable color overall.

I (finally) picked one of the ones with a softer, less brashy, sort of leafy green. I snatched a neatly folded dish towel from the linen closet, and rushed into the bathroom. I was eager not to miss anything in this kid’s life (MY kid). Lyndsey looked up at me like she was trying her best not to roll her eyes when I burst into the room haphazardly. She seemed to have been changing Tubbo’s diaper. I still needed to learn how to do that. There was a definite hope that she’d teach me how to change the diaper so I didn’t have to look it up on some sort of parenting forum, or whatever they had. Perhaps I would buy a few of those parenting books I see at the bookstore all the time.

While I was caught up in my thoughts as I often was, Lyndsey had somehow gotten Tubbo in his miniature clothes. I decided then that green was the best color for him. I reached out to grab him from her arms, to be able to have the comfort of knowing that he is actually completely safe, but she shook her head and stood up.

“Did you put the formula on the stove, Schlatt?”

Somehow, the words had caught me off guard, even though I’d been walking behind her as she stepped into the kitchen as if she owned the place.

“Oh, yeah, I did. I don’t really know if I did it right, though,” I looked down at the milky colored liquid in the baby bottle. “Is it supposed to be all yellow-y like that?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

She held Tubbo in one arm and fed him with the bottle as if it was the easiest action anyone could ever possibly pull off. I had no choice but to watch, amazed. How were you even supposed to hold the kid with one arm? Wasn’t that some sort of safety hazard? I refused to think of anything to do with Lyndsey dropping my kid. I hoped the flash of that thought didn’t somehow manifest into reality.

After a few moments, she looked over at me and pulled the bottle away from Tubbo’s mouth, resulting in a whiny grunt from him. I made eye contact begrudgingly.

“Would you like to try?” The question was genuine, she didn’t seem to have anything against me holding the baby, especially because she’d asked, but I felt as if she’d had a natural comfort while holding and doing the weird cooing thing that she’d done. I didn’t feel as worthy to hold and care for Tubbo. I was no longer the “put together father who could hold his kid right”, I was just… the guy who sat there while his sister did all the work and did it right. Regardless, I felt as though it was just plain rude to refuse taking care of my own kid. He is mine. I need to show responsibility.

“Yes, yeah, ok.”

She stepped towards me with a smile and handed the kid over, setting him up at the right angle in my arms and adjusting my arms as needed. I felt a bit useless, not knowing anything about what she was explaining to me. As soon as she stepped away, I looked down at Tubbo, who was drinking his formula just as he had been before he had been given to me. He wasn’t inherently disgusted by me, nor did he not want to be in my arms just because they were mine. He really didn’t hold any grudges. I’m not sure how I found that to be surprising, especially because I’ve had revelations similar to this in the last four hours, and he was a literal infant, incapable of keeping a memory in his tiny mind for longer than a month.

Though it felt weird to admit, Tubbo was awfully cute. He was only a few months old, but he already had this mop of dark brown hair similar to my own, definitely more wispy, but still much longer and thicker than what I’ve seen on other babies his age (though, who knows, maybe those babies were much younger than him. It’s been proven that I am not particularly good at guessing childrens’ ages).

Throughout the rest of the night Lindsey taught me how to do all of these mundane things like changing diapers and properly dressing babies. Her presence made me feel like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Like I could do the Absolute Bare Minimum to keep my child alive. Looking back I had the bar set really low, but at the time these seemed like monumental tasks.

As soon as she left, at about 8:00PM, Tubbo had fallen into a fitful sleep, snoring quietly. Every once and a while he would pause and hum some nonsense, turn around, and go back to snoring. I never thought I’d find a baby cute, I’d always been one of those avid baby-haters that thought they were all ugly. I suppose that once it’s your own, it’s different.

I wondered how anyone could abuse or ignore their own kids. I’d had what I consider a pretty neglectful childhood, no one taught me a lot of things I should have learned. My dad was almost never home, and when he was you weren’t supposed to engage in conversation with him (honestly, he really did not seem to enjoy having kids much at all). My mom tried, she really did, but my dad would pick apart any and everything she did. He would yell and scream at her for showing any minor emotions at what she did, so eventually she just stopped pushing. She no longer attempted to even show a smidgen of care towards either of her kids. At the time I was very upset by this, and that’s what kickstarted the realization that no one really liked me. After that, I started doing everything I could to fuel their dislike of me, because it doesn’t hurt as much if you know why, right?

Moral of the story is, I don’t want to be like my dad. And I don’t want Tubbo to be like me.

At this point, Tubbo had awoken from his short lived nap, blinking up at me with watery eyes. It looked like he was going to cry but instead he gave me a big, adorable grin and did the weird baby half-crawl-rocking-back-and-forth-until-they-get-to-their-desired-location thing until he got to the edge of my bed. I watch, oddly entranced in how he moved and acted. I felt as though if I were to be a father, I shouldn’t be this obviously awkward in front of my own child, but here I was. As someone who’d never been around babies my entire life, I had no idea what the proper baby-edicate was. Should I treat him like a normal person or like a brainless idiot? Maybe a mix of both?

I’d guess the right answer was to act as if he’s an extension of myself, not thinking any of his own thoughts or being able to feel emotions other than happy and uncomfortable. I didn’t like that very much. He had to have his own thoughts. What else could possibly be going on in that little head of his? Emptiness?

I thought about calling that number that Lyndsey had promised to give me. That Phil guy. Could he help me more than Lyndsey had? Probably. It was a bit late for that though. He was surely awake, no normal person older than nine years old goes to sleep before 9:00PM.

I wondered how I’d know when to feed Tubbo. He looked up at me after rolling over a few times, as if he was looking for a sort of approval. I smiled and patted him on the head. He blinked and continued. Would I have to wait until he starts crying to do anything? As a parent, was I supposed to sense when something was potentially wrong?

The kid huffed to himself and laid face down on the bed, having given up on his workout. I snickered, and picked him up, getting him situated in my arms, holding him the Right Way, as I had learned earlier. I wandered to the kitchen, and searched through the bags from the store earlier.

There was a lot of stuff that surely wasn’t necessary, like four different kinds of those yogurt covered teething puffs, and way too many genres of baby bottle (what is the difference between the kind with handles and the kind with the rubber? What does any of this mean? I just bought them because of the colors, honestly).

I ripped open one of the boxes of bottles like an ape and tried giving one of the nipples to Tubbo to see if he was hungry. This was another one of those Good Dad moments for me. I had come up with a way to determine if I needed to feed my child before he started sobbing or doing something else to indicate that he needed something, I was practically a parenting pro at this point (spoiler alert: I absolutely was not that).

Tubbo gazed up at me with a confused look on his face before accepting and sucking on the rubber nipple to no avail.

“Right, okay,” I said, mostly to myself.

For a moment I thought about what I should do with Tubbo while I was boiling the water and such. I couldn’t exactly hold him and I couldn’t exactly trust him on his own so I was thoroughly confused for a moment before I remembered that I had gotten him one of those weird circular things that you put your kids in and they can move around but they’re in a seat thing so they can’t exactly hurt themselves. This was going to make everything so much easier.

I placed Tubbo in the center of the contraption and walked back into the kitchen to begin making him some milk (milk?).

I heard him hitting the plastic part with something that probably wasn’t his flesh but I was a bit too wrapped up in my thoughts at the moment to really take note. I knew I had to call into work again tomorrow but after that would Phil be more of a father to Tubbo than I was?

I had to pull myself away from that idea for a moment. It felt like a punch in the throat. I would be Tubbo’s dad, Phil would just watch him until I could get home from work. This would be okay, this would work out just fine.

At this point the water was about to boil over so I had to pull it off of the stovetop but once I had grabbed ahold of the pot I was hit with the realization that I loved Tubbo. I had noticed this before, of course, but right here I was being so vulnerable, even in front of no one but myself, and accepting and admitting the fact that I wanted to be Tubbo’s father. I wanted to be there for him. It felt so bizarre to really genuinely love someone again but it was almost refreshing. I couldn’t quite explain it. It was scary but in a good way? Like roller coaster scary, almost.

The realization that I genuinely loved this child was so jarring that I spilled water all over the floor as well as my foot. I cursed under my breath, leaning onto the counter. There was enough water left in the pot to make Tubbo a bottle but I had definitely burned my foot and would need to address that soon.

I was on my way to the bathroom to treat my foot (though I didn’t really know what I would do when I got there) when I noticed what I had heard Tubbo doing earlier. He had grabbed an open beer bottle that I had left out on the end table and started hitting his weird circular tray with it. Nothing had broken (thankfully) but he had spilled about half a pint of beer all over himself as well as the carpet. Great. Of course it was my fault for leaving it within his reach (maybe leaving open bottles of alcohol within reach of my infant child was just inappropriate in general but I digress) but it was still an annoyance. I now had to bathe him, change his clothes, and clean the carpet.

He looked up at me with that annoyingly cute expression. I scowled, but then softened up immediately because I really couldn’t stay mad at the kid. He didn’t know what he’d done was wrong, either. Obviously.

I didn’t want to leave him there with the mess, nor did I want to have to sit with a burnt foot that was in pretty distracting amounts of pain while I cleaned all of the mess up. After a few seconds of standing in the door of the kitchen, staring at Tubbo while he stared at me back, I found that the best solution was to bring Tubbo into the bathroom with me and watch him while I cleaned up my foot. That way, I could clean him and the mess up afterwards, with no worry of him actually ingesting any of it, or doing anything else relatively dangerous.

I scooped the boy up and carried him into the bathroom, sort of limping as to not further the irritation. I placed him into the still-wet bathtub once again to insure his staying put. I knew that that wasn’t exactly prime parenting but I wasn’t exactly sure what else I was supposed to do. I mean, his stupid ring thing was covered in room-tempature beer and I had learned that leaving him alone is not what I was supposed to do (in retrospect the only real issue was my leaving alcohol within reach of my kid but I took that as a sign to not leave him again. Maybe that was a good idea but my reasoning was flawed) and I sort of needed him nearby anyways because as soon as I was done wrapping my foot (I really have no idea how I expected that to help but it was all I could think to do) I was going to have to bathe him.

As I wrapped my foot in a roll of what I could only assume was gauze that I found in my bathroom cabinet. Tubbo cooed in the bathtub, admiring the small colorful bottle of baby shampoo that I had gotten at the store earlier. I worried for a moment that he would try to do something clueless like drink the soap but those anxieties subsided when I realized that his motor skills were, appropriately, that of a six month old infant and he literally could not do that.

It was at that point that I realized that I had no idea how cold the water had to be. I didn’t put much thought into it until I was actually in the bathroom with the kid I needed to bathe. I knew that it couldn’t be hot because babies are far more sensitive to heat than regular people are but the question was exactly how cold it needed to be.

I wrestled with the issue for a moment before deciding that I would just not add any warm water. It felt like the wrong thing to do but ultimately the safest option. I’d rather be uncomfortably cold than physically burning as the latter comes with serious health concerns.

I ran the boy an entirely cold bath before I sort of just. Placed him in. I watched as he cringed at the sudden cold water but he appeared to adjust to the temperature pretty quickly.

I decided to toss his beer-stained clothes into the basically empty hamper of my own dirty clothes I had in the corner of the room. I rolled up the sleeves to my shirt and leaned over the side of the bathtub, eyeing the way he splashed wonderingly at the weirdly-tempered water. I hoped the soap would clean him just the same if it wasn’t warm; I really just assumed it would without much thought but now that I was looking at it, I couldn’t be too sure.

There was a brief second where I reached out to turn on the hot water for only a few moments, considering if I should actually do it. With the way my hand was awkwardly out in the air, basically in Tubbo’s face, he didn’t know any better than to latch onto my hand with his own. He looked up at me and tugged my arm, blubbering nonsense. I smiled down at him, and patted his head a few times with my free hand. He paused and closed his eyes, as if he were proud of himself for earning my attention. I chuckled, gazing at the boy for a brief moment before refocusing my attention on cleaning the drying beer out of his hair (good lord how did he even get it there?).

I decided against turning on the hot water because he had seemingly gotten used to the temperature, I figured it’d just be an unnecessary distraction for the both of us. We had other things to get done, we might as well just do them before it gets too late.

Bathing a baby is actually a lot easier than I expected. He pretty much just sat there without protest while I washed his hair. Of course there was that omnipresent fear that I was doing everything absolutely wrong but in the end he had gotten a bath and was sufficiently clean so whatever I was doing was working in some sense.

After I got the boy dressed in a new diaper and soft green onesie with what I assumed was a dinosaur head on the hood I brought him to the kitchen to check what little water was left in the pot to see if it was cool enough to mix with the white powder.

Before dipping my knuckle into the water I briefly glanced at the digital clock on my oven. It read 9:57 “Shit,” I whispered. It took me more than a half an hour to bathe Tubbo. Weird. It felt like a very in-and-out operation, like almost no time had passed at all. Of course this was false, as proved by the neon green numbers projecting brightly into the otherwise dark kitchen, but I suppose when you have nowhere to be time is about nothing more than perception so it didn’t matter much.

Predictably, the water was room temperature and therefore ready to turn into milk (I genuinely don’t know what it is. Baby tea? Imitation milk? I’m going with milk).

I didn’t know how long I was supposed to shake it for so I just sort of stood in the middle of my kitchen, baby in one hand, bottle in the other, shaking vigorously for at least four minutes, my thumb firmly pressing down on the rubbery nipple opening.

I stopped abruptly, causing Tubbo to look up at me with his big, tired eyes. A smile manifested itself onto my face as I watched him sit there, waiting for something to happen. I glanced over at the small plastic bottle to see the white liquid frothing. From there I assumed that it was thoroughly incorporated and hurried over to my couch, sitting down so that Tubbo could lie back and hold the bottle himself in the way that I had seen babies do previously. Obviously I’m an expert, guys, I’ve seen a baby before. I know, my skill is beyond comprehension for most.

All jokes aside, I felt like I was doing pretty well considering the circumstances. I knew how to do all of the basic things like feeding and clothing, I had mastered the art of baby-holding, I had put all of those annoying white plastic door knob coverings that even I struggled with on the handles of every door in the house, I had plans to set up a childcare arrangement the next day, and I really felt a loving attachment to the kid.

Even though I was doing (what I considered to be) great dealing with all of this, there were still countless things on my to-do list. I still had to get that Phil guy’s number, call into work and tell them that I would be gone yet again -- that one wouldn’t be too popular -- talk about whether Phil even was willing to take the kid in as often as I was asking, and some other stuff further down the line.

I silently stressed over how I wanted to get all of those things done as soon as possible, but after a few moments I had found a bit of a solution. I’d call into work saying that my mother had to have an emergency surgery and that I needed to go and see her. Then I’d text my sister, asking for Phil’s number, she’d most likely respond before the morning, and then I would “sleep”. Or, more accurately, I would lay in bed staring at the ceiling while Tubbo slept peacefully. (The upsides to that were that when he inevitably woke up and started crying, I was perfectly fit to get up and help him out.) In the morning, I would call Phil, and hope he responds in any form. Perfect plan.

While considering all of this, Tubbo had somehow drained his entire bottle of formula and was now staring up at me, kicking the bottle while he clutched onto it with his tiny hands. He was just sort of chewing on the rubber piece, not having a care in the world. I ruffled his wispy hair, and picked him up in the way I had perfected throughout the day. I discarded the bottle on the kitchen counter, willing to deal with that in the morning.

All the lights in the house were still on, so there was barely any room for my brain to perceive that it was in fact almost 10:20PM. Was 10 too late for Tubbo to go to sleep? I didn’t want to think about that too much, especially because he had already fallen into his peaceful sort of half sleep. I sat on the edge of the bed, after having set him down, and put my face in my hands, groaning quietly enough that it wouldn’t wake the kid. My phone had sat on the bedside table most of the day, laying there after I had hung up with Lindsey.

Calling into work at this hour was a stupid idea. Everyone was home by now, surely, and they had no interest in hearing from me outside of work hours. I understood that. But I imagined that the general consensus would have been that I would be gone, anyways. I was a busy guy, if I had to do anything I would have been outwardly planning it. Regardless, I figured that it would be at least mildly considerate to inform them that I would be gone again.

I picked up the phone and dialed the office number, sort of on auto-pilot. There was a second where I paused, reciting my story under my breath, making sure I got it all down. Mom who lives across the country fell down and is in hospital, probably needs surgery, might die, none of my siblings can be there for at least another week, dad died years ago, etc. I didn’t want to add too many details in case I slipped up and proved myself wrong at some point in the future, though seeing as how talk of my family was sparse, to say the least, I figured it would be okay.

And with that, I hit the call button. I stood up and tried to leave the room, so as not to wake Tubbo. Brrrring. I started to feel a bit light-headed after standing up too quickly. Brrrring. What if they could tell that I was lying? Brrrring. My vision started to get spotty. Brrrring. I heard Tubbo shifting in the other room. Brrrring. I leaned against the wall for support, the pain of putting weight on my foot becoming too much for me. Brrrring. I held my breath as the familiar sound of the voicemail message.

I felt like I was taking a leap of faith. I opened my mouth to say something but was interrupted by the sound that I dreaded hearing. Tubbo crying. Could they hear him? No, surely not, right?

I realized that I had been sitting in silence for several seconds at that point and that I had to just spit something out.

“H-hey Steph!” I started, sounding more cheery than I should have. “Could you please inform everyone that I’m going to be gone for a few more days? My, uh, my mother fell the other day and broke her hip. The doctors say that she needs an emergency surgery and it sounds like she might, um, that she might not make it,” I continued, trying my best to make it sound like my voice was breaking. “Neither of my siblings can make it for at least a week and my dad died a few years back. She’s in the hospital on the other side of the country and I-I-I-I I just have to be there. I’ll be in by next Monday, for sure, and maybe sooner but I really have no way to tell. I’ll let you know if anything changes. Thank you for um, understanding.” I then promptly hung up, feeling the immense relief, like something was physically lifted off of me.

With this new-found comfort of bought time I was able to pay attention to the crying child in my bed. I felt a tinge of frustration with him as he quite literally could not have picked a more inconvenient time to wake up but I was able to catch myself before it got too bad. It was really weird to have to unlearn things like getting mad when people were of inconvenience to me but I mean, he was a baby, he didn’t know what he was doing. Besides, I’m sure he wasn’t too pleased, either.

I picked him up and he immediately transitioned into those post-cry hiccups. I mean, it was an improvement? I think? He sounded like he was dying but he seemed to be calming down, so.

I put the boy down and tucked him in, sitting on the edge of the bed and sort of staring at him endearingly. He eventually closed his eyes and hummed lightly in that tired baby kind of way, somehow having fallen asleep in the few moments he had been back in the bed. Smiling, I looked back onto the floor, somehow feeling guilty for staring at him while he had slept.

Though there was the comfort of knowing I had about five days to get everything under wraps with the kid, I still felt as if there was the impending doom of everything I hadn’t completed yet falling on top of me at once. That combined with knowing I would come back to work with tons and tons of super important work to do not only made me want to cry, but really put into perspective how much importance Tubbo held, even in the kind of situation I was in.

I picked up my phone to find a text from Lindsey, simply containing a phone number and a note saying “Don’t call after eight.” Obviously, it was after eight, which meant that I had to scrap my plan of calling him as soon as humanly possible and having an excuse to avoid the inevitable tossy-turny-not-quite-there-yet “sleep” and instead plan on calling him the next afternoon. This, somehow, felt disappointing. Like it was at my will that I was not proceeding with the necessary childcare arrangements.

The usual pit in my stomach grew almost painful, the weird guilt of not being able to proceed with my plan (that, admittedly, I just haphazardly threw together within moments, but at the time it absolutely felt like that was the only way that things could get done) added to the weird guilt of my existence that I had grown desensitized to was too much for me. I felt like I was going to throw up.

I must’ve lied in bed for at least an hour, trying to convince myself that it wasn’t my fault, before I felt my eyes well up with tears. What if I wasn’t good enough for Tubbo? What if in my attempt to do everything for him I end up hurting him? What if I’m in over my head?

And with that, the floodgates broke and I felt the warm sting of a tear roll down my cheek before veering off to the side of my face and falling onto my pillow. It’d been so long since I had let myself be so vulnerable and it was scary.

Of course, after one tear fell, they basically poured like a waterfall. I was sat there, silently weeping, as to not wake my baby. My baby.

It couldn’t have been longer than ten minutes that I had spent lying there before I decided I had to get up. I knew this was a scuffed attempt at parenting but it was the best that I could do, throwing myself a pity party, as I would put it, would do nothing. Besides, I was bored. Bored of sitting there helplessly.

I dramatically threw my blanket off and stood up, looking back to make sure Tubbo remained asleep.

I got up and sat on the couch, feeling the tear-tracks on my face dry from cold lines to a weird feeling of tightness. I picked up the TV remote and flipped through the channels, eventually landing on a Spanish version of Family Guy. I thought having to read the subtitles would be a good distraction. And it was, but it wasn’t long until everything started to blur. I couldn’t really think straight and my eyes were pulsating. I suppose I must’ve fallen asleep because when I checked the clock again it was almost four in the morning and Spanish Family Guy had transitioned into some sort of cooking show that I struggled to identify. I heard Tubbo whimpering in the other room, causing me to slowly make my way to the boy.

There was a weird moment where I worried that someone had found out that I had a kid and was in there trying to harm him but I quickly realized and accepted that that was just anxiety and sleep-depravity.

Upon walking into the room, I found Tubbo face down (somehow?) on the mattress, in the middle of the bed, with no blankets, probably freezing. I quickly stumbled over to him, sitting on the edge of the bed and picking him up. He looked up at me and yawned hugely before falling into another fit of high-pitched sobs, the kind you just couldn’t help but flinch at.

I stood up with him cradled in my arms, beginning to walk around the room and whisper calming things he definitely did not understand. Some of the things may or may not have been the bits of reassurance that I wanted to hear from someone else. That’s unimportant.

I eventually left the room because he had shown no real signs of calming down in any way. When I stepped into the living room, hoping that somehow the more openness of it would get him to stop, he looked across the room to the TV. Apparently, the flashing colors and the little characters he didn’t understand were entertaining enough for his little brain that he immediately stopped crying and reached his arms out, trying to grab the little images.

In no universe I would object, because if I did he’d just continue crying. So I obeyed, walking closer to the television until we were near it but still a reasonable distance away. He giggled and reached out again, watching the random woman cut an onion on screen. I yawned. He didn’t seem to notice.

At some point, after five or so minutes, my feet were tired and my back hurt, so I flopped down on the couch and held Tubbo in my lap, facing the show so he could “watch” it. There must have been a point after that where I had passed out with him in my arms, because the next thing I knew, I woke up with the sun having risen and a sleeping baby in my arms.

Tubbo stirred, swallowing in his sleep. I watched. I didn’t want to wake him up, in case I’d startle him and make him cry, so I just looked at him casually as he slept. It felt almost awkward to be in such a close proximity to a sleeping person, even if it was my own son. Who was a baby. Who also couldn’t really comprehend what was happening to him at any given time. I was a mess, really.

Eventually Tubbo blinked his eyes open and looked up at me, apparently content. I smiled back the best I could. It wasn’t the most genuine thing I could have pulled off, but the kid did not care. He did his weird baby giggle and clapped his hands nonetheless.

I set him aside, so he was laying on the couch, and got my phone from my room as quickly as possible while still walking.

I checked the time as I sat back on the couch. It was 9:00am. Was that an acceptable time to call someone you didn’t know? Was it weird to call him before I’d done anything else?

A minute or two of pondering while playing with Tubbo led to the decision that it probably wasn’t that bad of an idea. I’d wait a few minutes though, just to play safe.

Oddly enough, “a few minutes” turned into an hour and a half of caring for the boy. I made him breakfast, I changed his diaper, I played with him, I watched him peacefully as he wobbled around the living room, taking breaks to grasp at the moving images on the TV. The whole parenting package, really. I mean, yeah, I was proud of myself for stepping over the bar that was sitting on the floor, but the bare minimum is still something.

Normally I would have spent a few moments composing myself and preparing what I was going to say, but I felt like the best way to do this was to just call. I mean, I was practically asking a complete stranger to be a second father to my child, preparing a debate-style argument probably wasn’t the move.

And with that, I held my breath and dialed the number provided. I refused to let myself feel the same anxiety that I had felt the previous night calling the office, being a nervous wreck did nothing for me when I was asking someone to perform a task this monumental.

The phone rang only twice before going to voicemail. The bastard didn’t answer the phone. (Okay to be fair being called by an unknown number leaves you with no obligation to respond but it still felt inconvenient).

I didn’t really pay attention to the recording that he had in place, only waiting for the tell-tale beep, signaling that I was to start talking.

“H-hello Philza,” I started, sounding as professional as possible. “This is Jschlatt. I need you to call me back as soon as possible. For security reasons, I cannot disclose the reason for my call until you return my phone call. All that I can tell you in this setting right now is that I need your help. It’s nothing that will endanger you or anyone close to you, but it is incredibly important nonetheless. Please call me back ASAP, goodbye.”

And with that I hung up.

-

I was cleaning up after the mess that Tommy had made in the kitchen earlier that morning when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket to see who it was and it had no caller ID, nor was the number familiar. I declined the call, returning to my previous activity.

It hadn’t been more than a minute before I felt the device buzz in my pocket again. I pulled it out, only to find that the forign number had left a voicemail. I immediately clicked on the notification, holding the speaker to my ear so that I could hear it more clearly.

“Hello Philza, this is Jschlatt,” it started. What. The. Fuck. “I need you to call me back as soon as possible. For security reasons, I cannot disclose the reason for my call until you return my phone call. All that I can tell you in this setting right now is that I need your help. It’s nothing that will endanger you or anyone close to you, but it is incredibly important nonetheless. Please call me back ASAP, goodbye.”

And then it ended. I felt my heart drop into my stomach. What did the motherfucking president want from me?

He said that whatever it was would put neither myself nor anyone close to me in danger, yet somehow I doubted that. Anything having to do with that man was dangerous, I knew that, but I also knew that refusing to comply could result in something like being stripped of citizenship and having to uproot not only myself but my family as well.

In a sort of daze I called out to my eldest son, Technoblade. “T-techno! Techno go take the boys to the park, please!”

He came down the stairs, about to complain, but when he saw the state I was in he just mumbled a quick “Okay” before rounding up Wilbur and Tommy. Y’know, he may not have shown it much but he was really worried for them. He didn’t want them in harm's way, and he would do almost anything to protect them.

As soon as I saw the boys leave the house, I picked up the phone and called the number, my mind going a million miles a second. What did he want? Why did he need me? What was going on?

-

I put my cell phone down in defeat, sort of accepting that I wasn’t going to get a call back and would have nowhere to turn.

Thankfully that proved to only be anxiety as my phone vibrated against the marble countertop almost instantaneously. Picking it up, I saw the vaguely familiar digits that I had dialed moments ago flashing at the top of the screen. Oh thank God.

I picked it up to a small voice on the other end. “H-hello? Is this Jschlatt…?” he asked.

“Mhm. Philza?”

“Yes,” he confirmed.

We sat there for a moment, not exactly knowing what to say first.

“I’m sorry if I’m being too direct, but what is it exactly that you want from me?” He asked in an eager tone.

“Right, sorry. So, uh, basically, d’you know Lyndsey? I’m, uh-wait, okay, I need you to swear that you will not repeat any of the following to anyone under any circumstances, okay?” I asked, trying my best not to break my presidential persona.

“Yeah. Yes. Yes, I swear that, under no circumstances will I repeat this information to anyone ever.”

“This is sort of a flimsy agreement but I presume you know the potential consequences if you break it, yes?” I almost threatened.

I heard him swallow hard before choking out a rather meek “Yes, sir.”

“Great, thank you. So, um, Lyndsey, you know her?”

“Yeah, yes, I, um, I met her through a parenting group thing a few years ago. Why?”

“Great, okay. I’m her brother, and, um, okay okay okay listen, I need you to understand that I know that I’m in deep shit at this point, okay, and this is more of a personal issue than anything else, okay? I know this is last-minute and fucked up and chaotic and abnormal and I’m sorry but I need your help right now, okay?” I rambled, giving up on salvaging any professionalism that remained.

“Yes alright mate, got it. What do you need?” He sounded impatient. I almost grew frustrated with him but after less than a minute of thought I concluded that if the president (dictator*) called me and told me that something was going on and my help was needed. I, too, would be pretty on-edge.

“Alright, so, I came home from work the other day, right? I see this box on my porch. I was confused because I hadn’t ordered anything online or whatever, so there wasn’t really a reason for there to be a box there. I figured that it was a package meant for my neighbors because sometimes I get their mail and so I planned to just drop it off in front of their house but I got closer and it was open so I was like ‘what?’ so I looked at what was in it out of curiosity and it just looked like a painfully realistic baby doll. I think a part of me probably only thought that because I couldn't accept the idea that there was an actual child on my doorstep, but I mean I would have to do something with the box anyways, so I poked it’s face to make sure it wasn’t actually a living thing and it’s skin was all, like, soft and bouncy. Like a baby is. Then it sort of recoiled at my touch. So the conclusion was that it was alive, so obviously I couldn’t leave the kid out there. He had a little baby blanket--but it was like fifty degrees out, and it was pouring. He was hardly under the awning. I picked up the box and brought him inside. I rummaged through the box and I found a little envelope containing his social security card and his birth certificate but the mothers name wasn’t legible and so I couldn’t really find her. She left a note saying that the only reason that she brought him to me was because she was broke and didn’t have a job and couldn’t afford to take care of him so it’s not like I could give him back anyways and like, I have the means to care for him and I’m sure that I can do it but I’ve never had to care for a kid like ever so I don’t know what to do. And I mean I’m doing everything to keep him alive, like I’m feeding him and bathing him and changing his diapers and playing with him and all, but like, I don’t know how to be a parent. Quite honestly, I’m scared, like I can’t let anyone know that I have him because I know that everyone hates me... and for good reason... but I can’t let anything happen to him. Letting people know that I have a kid now would be like putting a target on his forehead so only you and Lyndsey know about him. I took the week off of work so that I could figure out what I’m gonna do, because I need someone to take care of him during the days, I really don’t know who I can trust--” I stopped myself, realizing that Phil had just been sitting in silence that entire time. “Ahem, I’m sorry about that. My point is that I need your help. I need you to take care of Tubbo during the day. Please. I can pay you literally whatever you want, I can provide all of the baby things you would need, he seems pretty docile so far but to be fair he’s only been in my custody for a few days… As far as I know, he doesn’t cry very much. Can you help me, Phil?”

He took a moment before responding, presumably taking a moment to process whatever the fuck I had just said, which was fair.

He eventually broke his silence, saying “If you don’t mind my asking, why don’t you just put him up for adoption?” I could hear the slight twinge of annoyance mixed in with the sympathy of his tone.

“I can’t. I love him. I don’t find things I love very often, and I love this kid. I love him so fucking much, and I want to keep him. I know that I can, but I need someone to take care of him while I’m at work,” I said. Why was I being so open with this total stranger? And why did it feel so...good?

“Okay,” he responded, quietly.

“‘Okay’ as in you acknowledge that I said something or ‘okay’ as in you’ll watch him?” I asked, rather nervously.

“Listen, I run a daycare out of my home, okay? I can take him, I can, and I will, but you have to understand that there are parents and other kids in and out of here a lot, alright? Like, A lot, so I don’t know what you’d have to do to hide that he’s your kid but if no one else can know then you’d have to figure it out, understood?” He said.

It was odd how his presence on the phone line somehow calmed me but it did. I suppose when you work with children all day you have to know how to do...that. Parenting. He was basically parenting me over the phone.

“Yes, I understand, thank you. Seriously, thank you. So so much. You won’t regret this, I promise,” I assured.

“I hope not,” He chuckled nervously. “When do you think you’ll first bring him over?”

“Oh, um, I mean, I have until next Monday, so probably just then? Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah, you can bring him next Monday, but you’re going to need to get here before seven every morning, do you understand? You have to get here before everyone else, okay?”

“Yes, yes. Right. I can do that, thank you so much.”

And with that I ended the call. The relief I felt at that moment was indescribable. The rest of this kid’s life was coming together. I had a solid, solid plan for him, and for the first time in forever I felt like everything would be okay.

After that, me and Tubbo fell into a comfortable, livable, not horrifically stressful routine. Every weekday, I would take him to Phil’s house at around 6:30-7:00AM, to avoid any and all people who would see the president and find out about his son. It was sort of nerve-wracking to go anywhere with him, but I knew that I’d be used to it in time, and Tubbo would never really know we were much different than other families.

Tubbo grew much faster than I had ever anticipated, soon enough learning how to walk. Or more accurately, wobble around with his arms sticking straight out. Which is more or less exactly how I walk around the house as well. He also quickly learned how to say a few words, that he had copied from either me or Phil and his family. The first one he had revealed to me was “shit”, which he had yelled in the middle of the dairy aisle in the local Walmart. It was equally as funny as it was mortifying.

I had also gotten better at parenting as a whole. Or at least I hope I did. Phil often called me for news about Tubbo, which I appreciated more than anything. Along with his offhand news on the new words the kid was saying, the new people he was following around in hopes of befriending, etc, he would also slide in a few parenting tips. I both wanted and needed the tips, and he was more than willing to oblige.

Soon, Tubbo had outgrown the house he’d lived in half the time for basically the entirety of his infancy. It was time to start public school. I, naturally, was petrified. I had no way of knowing if Tubbo was safe at all in this new environment, and I didn’t know if I could trust any of the staff there.

Luckily enough, though, Lindsey had a really close friend who was the vice principal of a local elementary school. That friend was also willing to keep quiet about things. It was perfect.

The first day of kindergarten.

I had been shaking all morning. Tubbo was, naturally, excited. More excited than I had seen him in a very long time. He was jumping up and down at any chance he could get, and yelling at me about how he would meet a ton of new friends who would talk about Legos and My Little Pony with him (Weird phase. His favorite was Fluttershy). I hoped my fear wasn’t obvious to him. I had no way of really knowing if it was, because he ignored it either way.

He was dressed in his favorite, slightly ratty green sweater (he insisted on wearing it. I wished he had picked a neater outfit, but it was still cute. It’s not like any of the 4 year olds in there would be judging him), a pair of jeans that were at least a size too big, his favorite bee-colored shoes, and a big beanie that had, you guessed it, My Little Pony characters on it. He was proud of himself for picking that one out.

The car ride there was relatively good. There was no intense traffic, despite it being the first day to the new school year, and Tubbo stayed relatively quiet in his seat. He did explain to me a bunch of school things he’d learnt on TV, which I of course already knew, but he needed to inform me that they actually sat at DESKS. and used PENCILS. and DREW STUFF.

When we got there, I was all nerves at this point. I was wearing a plain grey sweatshirt, the hood over my head anytime we were in front of people. Tubbo didn’t mind. He was still happily holding onto his lunchbox with both hands, basically bouncing in excitement. I was getting a little emotional already, even though he had gone to Phils, and then preschool. Still though.

We were kind of in the way of all the other kids and parents that needed to get in. So I decided I had to make it quick. Tubbo looked up at me with big eyes and smiled the way that reminds me of myself. I almost sobbed.

I patted him on the head twice and pushed him softly towards the door, waving at his back. “You’re gonna do great, kid.”


End file.
